Maher not paying Trump in bet feud

Liberal comic Bill Maher responded to “rich idiot” Donald Trump’s lawsuit Friday, saying that he wouldn’t fork over $5 million to charity for a late night talk show joke he made last month.

“They seem to be trying to set a bold new precedent that jokes on late night talk shows are now legally binding agreements between the comedian and the person they’re making fun of,” Maher said on his show HBO’s “Real Time.” “The legal system in this country is not a joke — it’s not a toy for rich idiots to play with.”

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Trump said earlier this week he’s suing Maher after Maher didn’t follow through on a bet. Maher said last month on NBC to Jay Leno that he would pay $5 million to Trump’s charity of choice if Trump released a birth certificate proving he’s not “spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan.”

It was similar to an offer Trump made to President Barack Obama about releasing his college records and birth certificate, for which he raised false accusations that Obama wasn’t born in America.

In his response on Friday, Maher told Trump to “suck it up.”

“Now, public figures of course don’t always like everything that’s said about this, but that’s how we roll here in America. Just like we’re the gun country, we’re the joke country — we love our free speech and we love our celebrities getting taken down a peg,” Maher said. “So Don, just suck it up like everybody else.”

Maher said Trump must learn some basic business skills.

“Donald Trump must learn two things: what a joke is and what a contract is,” Maher said. “This is known as parody, and it’s a form of something we in the comedy business call a joke… really, we’re going to court about this?”

He added: “But remember who we’re dealing with here — a man who, for a little extra publicity will happily keep alive a debate about whether is family reunions are held at the zoo.”

Trump fired back on Twitter Saturday:

Dummy @billmaher forgot to say that he made an absolute offer which I accepted. Hopefully, charity gets $5M dollars.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2013

How does @hbo employ @billmaher with a pathetic show that he does—— what kind of “a special” is that? Complete garbage!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2013

.@billmaher’s so called show on HBO must be the cheapest “special” produced in the history of television—- it sucks!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2013